Former NBA star Jason Caffey owes a lot of women a lot of child support. For a while now, a federal bankruptcy judge in Alabama blocked those women from pursuing Caffey for the back child support until the baller’s finances were dealt with in court. But today, that judge dismissed the bankruptcy case which had been pending since August 2007.
The dismissal allows several suits to proceed now against Caffey. He has 10 children with eight different women. One of those women, LoRunda Brown, has a suit pending in Georgia in which Caffey owes over $200,000 in delinquent support and attorney’s fees. An arrest warrant issued in that case can now be reinstated.
Karen Russell has a pending case in Tuscaloosa, Alabama (where Caffey went to college) in which she claims she is owed over $100,000 in child support arrearages and attorney’s fees.
Another mother, Nicole Carter, plans to file suit alleging that Caffey fraudulently transferred assets meant to establish a trust fund to provide for their daughter.
Caffey played on two NBA championship teams in Chicago in the 1990′s.
Also See:
3 Comments
Good!Celebs/athletes should not be using bankruptcy as a shield against what they rightfully owe other people. just because he spent his money in irresponsible ways doesn’t mean that he should be able to avoid paying child support.
Hopefully this decision will go a long ways to convincing celebs that they cannot just manipulate the legal system for their own needs.
Even though the judge temporarily blocked the women from pursuing Caffey for child support, it has long been the case that a bankruptcy does not discharge a child supoprt or spousal support obligation. So, Caffey was never going to be off the hook for child support he legitimately owed.
The Bankruptcy Abuse Prevention and Consumer Protection Act of 2005, designates spousal and child supoprt as “Domestic Support Obligations”, which eliminates the Court’s discretion to weigh whether discharging the child and spousal support obligations would create a benefit to the debtor.
The bottom line is that child support obligations are not dischargable in a bankruptcy, so you can be sure that celebrities and athletes that have sqandered their fortunes will not be allowed to shirk their child support obligations.
Monica is (obviously) absolutely right in pointing out that spousal and child support obligations are not dischargeable in bankruptcy.
The interesting twist to the Caffey case was that, after he filed for bankruptcy, he and his lawyer negotiated with one of his exes to pay a certain sum to her for back support and attorneys’ fees in order to avoid being taken into custody on a contempt warrant. The bankruptcy judge determined that the payment violated the stay order (even though the support obligation would never be discharged through bankruptcy) and required the child’s mother to pay the money back in.
Stay orders generally prohibit creditors from continuing collection activities after a bankruptcy filing and also prohibit debtors from negotiating payments to certain creditors to the detriment of others (because it lessens the funds ultimately available to be divided between the creditors).
It is unfortunate for his children that Caffey was able to delay child support enforcement actions for over a year while the bankruptcy case sat pending.